


You'll always have nightmares, Jack

by tenderpines



Category: Tales from the Gas Station
Genre: Alternate Universe, As usual I'll add tags as I write, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-12
Updated: 2021-02-04
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:21:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24144301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tenderpines/pseuds/tenderpines
Summary: Sometimes when you can't sleep, the nightmares find their way into your life. You fall into delirium and wonder if your entire life is some delusion. And maybe it is. You'll never know. And that will drive you to madness.
Relationships: Jack/Jerry (Tales From the Gas Station)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 17





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I've been chewing on this for a bit and I think I'm ready to post it. There will be no porn in this one but it will get kinda dark. This is a little more serious in writing.

My shift at the gas station was as normal as I could get it in every way. Peaceful, slow, minimal interaction, the best qualities of a night shift. It was an overall really nice night. I got through two novels before shit hit the fan. 

A woman wearing a long, green coat came in, brought out a revolver, and had it pressed against my skull before I even noticed her. I took a deep breath and put down the book. Looking up, I saw the empty expression on her face that was probably the most disturbing part of the interaction. "Your money or your life." She said. It was simple, direct, even boring as a robbery goes. At least I enjoyed that part of this interaction. 

I started to nod, but decided to answer with a quick "Yes ma'am.". It only took a few minutes for me to clean out the cash drawer, about $163 if you're curious, and hand it over. She smiled at me, but I couldn't see a single emotion on her face. Then again I'm not keen at reading people, so I did what I do best and ignored it. As she took the gun away from my head, she shot a round into the wall behind me. She laughed as I flinched, which was like an even worse adult version of the game where a bully pretends to hit you. 

As she left the store, I took a moment to count my blessings and be grateful she didn't steal any of my personal items. My laptop and books were the last line on the defense for my sanity. I heard the familiar sound of a car starting, music blaring, some yelling, and then a gunshot. And another. And another. And then the car turned off. I thought it was over but flinched as I heard more gunshots. I was reaching for my earplugs when I heard Jerry come in through the back. 

He sauntered up to me smiling, "Hey Jack what's up?" I tried to ignore the blood splatter on his clothes as I watched him set down the same bag I had just handed over to the lady minutes before. 

I shrugged, "We got robbed but I guess you knew that.". He chuckled in response and I put the cash back in. $160.42 exactly. Eh. I guess I preferred Jerry robbing us to random strangers. It was 4 in the morning so I asked the harder question "You gonna take care of the car and body before O'Brien gets here?".

Jerry smiled and ran a hand through his blond hair "Yeah dude totally. Does that count as maintenance?" I rolled my eyes and nodded; he moved outside to go take care of that mess. 

It became pretty quiet for another hour.

Jerry came back in at some point. I didn't hear him because eventually the whispering got to me and I put in earplugs. I actually saw him about two hours later when a customer asked for a box of cigarettes and he was behind me playing on a switch. I raised my eyebrows and he looked up from his game of Skyrim and waved. He had changed and presumably taken care of his mess. 

Oh well none of my business. I snagged the box and rang up the customer. He looked a bit familiar but I couldn't quite place it. He was big, pretty scruffy and had tan skin. His brown eyes stared hard at me while I gave him his total "That'll be $9.23.". 

He handed over a ten and pity flashed across his face. "Sorry about all the trouble." he grumbled. He was probably just talking about him loitering in the back by the drink cooler. People do weird shit back there all the time so I said it was no big deal and let him go on his way. As he left, he gave me one more long look of pity. I didn't like pity looks. I didn't like his pity looks. But he was gone now and he paid. 

A few minutes later, Jerry decided that he was actually bored and wanted to see if he could do anything to improve the status of the drink cooler door. Fun fact, he couldn't. I knew he was more curious about what that guy from earlier was doing. I watched him rummage around the cheap beers before hearing him say a really harsh "Oh shit.".

That was a 'we're in trouble' cuss so I called out to him "Hey Jerry? Is something wrong?". He was frantically fucking with something back there.

When he responded, he sounded like he was on the verge of tears. His voice was cracking and I could hear pure desperation "The dude left a bomb and. I don't think I." his voice shuddered. Oh shit. "I can't unwire it there's not enough time" He stood up and ran towards me, grabbing my hands as tears poured down his face. I felt my heart race in all the worst ways I really hoped this was some kind of fucked up joke he was playing. 

He continued barely taking time to breath "It'll be okay Jack, I'll see you soon this won't happen again if I'm around I'm so sorry I fucked it up again I love you." 

Wait what? Again? Soon? "Jerry what the-".

The world turned white in a split second. It happened faster than I could process. 

My name is Jack and I work at this run down little burger joint on the edge of town. I'm the lead chef which mainly boils down to me being the only chef. The place is busy enough with the traffic from the nearby highway. In the only actual fulltimer who works here, all of the wait staff are part time and I'm the manager whenever someone gets upset over a meal.

It's not too bad, but a lot of weird things keep happening. For example, the grill has green fire. I've never been able to figure out why. Weirder is this tall, scruffy, brunette, stoner looking dude who's been coming in every day for the past week. He looks like he lives out of his car but for some reason people keep asking him for autographs. I think he's been trying to give me his phone number.


	2. Chapter 2

"I've always done my best to lay low since there's a fairly good chance that I could have died at any given point of time in the last decade, and could very well die at any given time in the future. With the life expectancy of a medieval peasant with a love for licking rats, I never found the need to make or keep any relationships. I also never felt the need to climb the corporate ladder. 

When a new "regular" came around, I didn't think much about it. At first I thought he was just some extremely handsome and charismatic vagrant. He would come in every day at 1pm sharp, order a cheeseburger with swiss, onions, tomatoes, bacon, and extra pickles with a side of sweet potato fries and sweet tea. And everytime he'd get it, he'd say that there simply weren't enough pickles. He'd ask if he could please talk to the cook or the manager, and Rose would come get me. Then, he would proceed to start talking very enthusiastically while picking all the goddamn pickles off his burger.

He was really only doing it to talk to me, unfortunately he didn't seem to get the fact that I was simply not interested in him, his ideas, or his pickles. I soon learned that his name was Jared Polinski, and according to Rose, he was one of the top models in the country.

He had this idea in his head that if I would just quit my job as a glorified burger flipper, I could join him and be the yin to his yang as his companion model or something. He was on something about vibes and all that, but I feel most people can agree that a half dead apathetic looking grill worker is almost the worst choice for a companion model. 

Anyway, I had gotten to know him a bit too well for my own liking, about a full month of him coming in every day at 1pm -except sundays because the owners felt I needed to go to church- when the… incident lhappened.

I should give a little more background before I start going over that day. I knew a guy in high school named Shane who at some point became only a little obsessed with me. I had banned him from the dinner since he was sort of harassing and threatening me and being generally aggressive, but he stuck around the lot a lot. I have never known if he's had a job but he has a very… extensive wardrobe. Oh also he thinks I killed his sister but I mean come on everyone knows he killed her. 

So… the incident. Jared had been fired that morning and managed to somehow not only put alcohol on the menu but be served it as well. He was sobbing and generally hysterical, Rosa was doing her best to comfort him. Not just because he was a millionaire with a fantastic tipping record, but also because they had gotten to know each other too. 

Then Shane came in at around 11am. I could see the two pistols strapped to his chest and gave Rose my signal of "serve him but if there's any problems come get me and then get the shotgun that's under the counter". You'd be surprised how often we used that signal. He ordered two eggs over easy, crispy bacon, and toast with jam. I made up the order without spitting in it even once, which I'm pretty proud of myself for. I was plating the meal when I saw him.

Okay more background for me, I keep forgetting some important stuff. I see ghosts and on the rare occasion, I see the grim reaper. Normally he only shows up when someone is about to die.

So I made eye contact with the man, who's rather handsome might I add, and he nodded solemnly. I gave Rose the signal of "get the shotgun now" and delivered the plate myself. Shane was at the counter, only one seat away from the still bawling Jared. 

I said "Heya Shane, y'know, I still have technically banned you from here but I decided to be nice today. I'd like you to eat up and leave as fast as you can, please."

Shane frowned. He poked at his eggs, causing the yolk to break. Something about the sight of it just really caught me off guard. It made me feel nauseous and light headed, my mouth dried up instantly. I saw the grim reaper move into the dining area and place his hands on Jared's shoulders. I looked back at Shane, who was drawing one of his guns. I leapt over the counter and tackled him. He fired but the bullet ricocheted off… god knows what, and hit Jared. I wrestled Shane for the gun he was holding, he managed to break my nose but pretty soon I was holding the gun. And I fired a bullet right into his skull. 

I stood up to see how bad Jared was holding up only to see him bleeding out on the floor. He looked up and me and smiled. I heard Rose scream, and then everything went black."

Finishing my statement was emotionally draining at best and a kick to the balls at worst. I looked up at the jury, most of them seemed unimpressed, but a few had pity in their eyes. Scratch that, the only ones with pity were the ghosts in the stand. They knew.

After all, Jared was right beside me the entire time to back up my story. But only for them. 

I turned back to face the judge who told me to sit down. I don't remember sitting down, or the rest of the hearing for that matter. When I blinked, I was back in my cell listening to Jared telling me a story about the time he spilled wine on a very expensive dress in Luxembourg. Hopefully I wouldn't be joining him anytime soon.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jack finds himself blamed for the murder of two men. He manages to reconnect to those he cares for.

My attorney couldn't decide if he wanted me to be insane or guilty. Maybe I was one of those, but it definitely wasn't the latter. There had been discussion over a death sentence. The jury thought I was making up the whole ghost thing just to try and plead insanity. Part of me wishes it was fake, or that they did just kill me. 

I was pretty sure I was being haunted. I know what you're thinking: there's constantly ghosts around you, what the fuck are you talking about? Well I think this is a classical haunting. Things moving, weird sounds, just the stereotypical spooky shit. The weird thing was that I never saw Shane. Jared couldn't find him either. 

It was… unnerving to say the least. Most of the time, ghosts didn't bother hiding from me. Then again, they also had some kind of intuition, they knew I was there in their world. And Shane wasn't normal even when he was alive…

I was chatting with Jared about the ethics of luxury fashion when I heard someone enter the holding room thing. I don't know jail lingo, sue me. There was a tall blond woman with a dress far too nice for a county jail that showed a uh, a lot of cleavage. The hair framed her face in a bob, though I could still see the cold, hard look in her eyes, boring straight into me. 

Jared sat up and asked a question she couldn't answer "Mom?"

I couldn't answer him without her most likely berating me, so I furrowed my brow and tried to meet her gaze before settling in her eyebrows. I hated eye contact.

"Jack? Jack Townsend?" She asked but it sounded more like a demand.

I nodded my head.

She sneered and I felt a cold hand grasp my shoulder. I looked up to see the owner of that hand only to see that same handsome man who was at the dinner however long ago. 

It might sound weird but I never had trouble maintaining eye contact with Death. 

Jared was freaking the everloving fuck out for ten different reasons at once. His mom had just promised to get me killed but I hadn't heard her. I could tell she would make good on that promise as Death sat on the bench next to me, holding my hand in his and gently thumbing over my knuckles. 

I had seen a lot of people die in my short lifespan. Apparently my looming death became a beacon for all those who knew me in life but passed.

My body was freaking out, like some sort of panic attack as my small holding cell filled with the large number of people who knew me in life and wanted to offer me a comforting word, or maybe a threat from an old grudge.

I was struggling to breathe and ignoring one dude yelling about peanuts when one face in the crowd stood out to me. I saw Her. I broke out into a cold sweat and my head spun.

I was trying so hard but I just couldn't remember her name. Death learned over and whispered in my ear to help me out "Alacritas." 

What? I couldn't remember, but I was sure that that wasn't her name. He gave me a knowing smile and I couldn't find her face in the crowd anymore. Neither could I find Jared's.

I was overwhelmed and felt like throwing up. Death kissed my forehead and whispered yet again "I'll see you again, Ves." His voice was so soft and warm I almost forgot that my name wasn't anywhere near what he called me. 

Then it all faded into nothing. That nothing felt so familiar, so comforting.


End file.
